3 ms·

> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. This seems to

> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. This seems to me like a perfectly legitimate question.

jimbob45 5y ago
>Some critics have detected in HAL's wheedling voice an undertone of homosexuality. Was that intended? >No. I think it's become something of a parlor game for some people to read that kind of thing into everything they encounter. HAL was a "straight" computer. From an interview with Kubrick in 1970[0]. The attempt to transform every male-male relationship in every piece of media to homosexuality has sadly killed the concept of friendship in media, just like it did to Xena and Gabrielle. It's okay for friendship to just be friendship. [0]http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html
- wolverine876 5y ago
  The artist doesn't decide the art's meaning to me (or you). Once the art is released into the wild, it's out of their hands. It's like an open source project, in a way, (or any software release): you release it and then everyone uses and modifies it in different ways, many of which you never imagined. It's not yours anymor; it belongs to the users. I think what is interesting, and most valuable, is that people will find one way or another to attack any normalization of non-cisnormal sexuality. Why is that? (Also, one example doesn't prove anything.)
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    Cool, so lit critics can start publishing interpretations of clear expressions of the gay and trans experience and claiming the gay/trans characters are closeted or secretly wish to detransition? (I hope not)
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  I believe you'll find that this is from a different book by a different author.
Nasrudith 5y ago
I mean it is a complicated question based upon how you define gay in the first place with sex segregated family isolating education policies of the British schools. The whole reasons for that were the old chestnut of fighting decadence to justify brutality and worry that a mother's love would leave Britan with men too soft. Then there is the ever present situational sexuality evident in prisons and single sex schooling. It not only held there but was acknowledged. There is a homophobic by modern standards quote from his friend and contemporary C.S.Lewis about sodomy being a weed filled, stagnant oasis in the constant social struggle but an oasis nonetheless appears to be him "Saying what everyone knows but doesn't acknowledge out loud." To sum it up in a snarky pithy phrase: the culture was so misogynistic that it became gay, because romance requires another person. It is reflected a bit in sheer rarity of female characters in LOTR. Romantic friendships were a norm in the past largely forgotten in more open times where we are used to noticing obvious repression and "closet cases". In a way the real past manages to be even more alien than fantasy worlds with elves and dwarves.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  Or, and hear me out here, they just had experienced trench warfare in WWI (which Mordor is arguably inspired from and which Sam and Frodo had to experience together) and few things ever draw men closer together platonically than being in combat together.

jimbob45 5y ago

>Some critics have detected in HAL's wheedling voice an undertone of homosexuality. Was that intended? >No. I think it's become something of a parlor game for some people to read that kind of thing into everything they encounter. HAL was a "straight" computer. From an interview with Kubrick in 1970[0]. The attempt to transform every male-male relationship in every piece of media to homosexuality has sadly killed the concept of friendship in media, just like it did to Xena and Gabrielle. It's okay for friendship to just be friendship. [0]http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html

wolverine876 5y ago
The artist doesn't decide the art's meaning to me (or you). Once the art is released into the wild, it's out of their hands. It's like an open source project, in a way, (or any software release): you release it and then everyone uses and modifies it in different ways, many of which you never imagined. It's not yours anymor; it belongs to the users. I think what is interesting, and most valuable, is that people will find one way or another to attack any normalization of non-cisnormal sexuality. Why is that? (Also, one example doesn't prove anything.)
- pcmoney 5y ago
  Cool, so lit critics can start publishing interpretations of clear expressions of the gay and trans experience and claiming the gay/trans characters are closeted or secretly wish to detransition? (I hope not)
bigbillheck 5y ago
I believe you'll find that this is from a different book by a different author.

Nasrudith 5y ago

I mean it is a complicated question based upon how you define gay in the first place with sex segregated family isolating education policies of the British schools. The whole reasons for that were the old chestnut of fighting decadence to justify brutality and worry that a mother's love would leave Britan with men too soft. Then there is the ever present situational sexuality evident in prisons and single sex schooling. It not only held there but was acknowledged. There is a homophobic by modern standards quote from his friend and contemporary C.S.Lewis about sodomy being a weed filled, stagnant oasis in the constant social struggle but an oasis nonetheless appears to be him "Saying what everyone knows but doesn't acknowledge out loud." To sum it up in a snarky pithy phrase: the culture was so misogynistic that it became gay, because romance requires another person. It is reflected a bit in sheer rarity of female characters in LOTR. Romantic friendships were a norm in the past largely forgotten in more open times where we are used to noticing obvious repression and "closet cases". In a way the real past manages to be even more alien than fantasy worlds with elves and dwarves.

pcmoney 5y ago
Or, and hear me out here, they just had experienced trench warfare in WWI (which Mordor is arguably inspired from and which Sam and Frodo had to experience together) and few things ever draw men closer together platonically than being in combat together.